July 14, 2013 | Read Time: 1 minute
A new generation of charities is helping veterans recover from physical and psychological wounds through community service, demonstrating the value of programs that put people to work for others, says a cover article in Time by Joe Klein (July 1).
The piece highlights the work of The Mission Continues, which places veterans in public-service fellowships, and Team Rubicon, which sends veterans on disaster-relief missions around the world. It notes that other such groups “are spouting spontaneously across the country, building houses, working in health care, teaching, counseling, farming, and taking care of their more seriously wounded comrades.”
The article cites studies showing that community service is therapeutic—contributing, for example, to greater longevity, reduced depression, and a better sense of purpose among older people—and touts the value that a “robust national-service program” would have on “our nation of couch dwellers.”
“If service is therapeutic, imagine the impact, especially on boys, who are having more trouble than girls graduating from high school and college these days,” Mr. Klein writes. “If service can reconnect individuals to their communities, imagine the impact on our waning sense of civic engagement, our weirdly hallow democracy in which active citizenship has been displaced by marketing and political sloganeering.”
The magazine published results of a poll by the Aspen Institute showing that 80 percent of American voters would support a voluntary program for people of all ages to serve in a military or civilian capacity for a year in exchange for a living allowance and educational assistance. It found that 61 percent of voters have a favorable view of national service.
To read more, go to: time.com.
